


Autophobia

by chiptease



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Developing Friendships, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Horror, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Nondescriptive gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 03:34:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18541441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiptease/pseuds/chiptease
Summary: Martin has a recollection of a memory he'd rather leave forgotten. His subconscious decides to remind him of it at three in the morning.(Marked mature for non-descriptive gore mentions, to be safe.)





	Autophobia

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS for Season 1 warning!

His skin felt as dry and thin as parchment paper.

 

It was if his lips were chapped, but the fissures and cracks of his skin lined his entire body. Every swath, every inch of his figure felt as if it could burst into flames at any given notice - he felt so hot, so light, and so unbearably _dry._

 

That is, every part of him that wasn’t hollowed out.

 

He was riddled with holes - little passages that threaded into him, through his soft muscle tissue and around the hard girth of young bones, all interwoven and interlocked throughout his small figure. The image of a city grid came to mind, and if he wasn’t in the situation that he currently was, he might have laughed at that. _Now arriving at Martin Blackwood. Population: growing exponentially._

 

And growing, indeed, the population was.

 

His body simmered with the maggots, teetered with them. They fell from his nose, his ears, his lips - a hand that desperately came to clutch his hollowed eye socket was only met with more writhing, and the taps as more cascaded from the hollowed masses of what used to be his hands and arms and hit the floor. His mouth opened, and he was choking desperately, frantically trying to scream but unable to produce much beyond a dry rhasp as his throat filled with worms and the sound was stifled. He dropped to his knees, fingers clutching at his ragged chest, feeling the itch cascade to his lungs, tunnel through the softness of his intestines, his heart.

 

Martin jolted up suddenly, world spinning out of focus. It was dark, and quiet aside from the faint tick of the clock overhead and his own ragged breathing. A hand fumbled at his nightstand for his phone flashlight to shine on it.

 

_03:17_

 

Soft tremors wracked his body as he worked to pace his breaths. His whole body was damp, lathered with a cold sweat he must have worked up during his nightmare, blissfully different than that of his dream-state. When the pounding of blood in his ears subsided, he faintly heard a voice from outside his door and an insistent knocking.

 

His stomach dropped and fingers clutched his arms as he heard that dreaded sound and realized that she must have found him again - how had she gotten in? Was the room as sealed as Jon had assured him? Had those maggots squeezed under the cracks of the door, and burrowed inside of him yet? Was his skin already bubbling with the little lumps of white flesh?

 

But, to his immense relief, his arms were simply wracked in goosebumps as his hairs stood on end. And after a brief pause, he let his shoulders drop.

 

The voice was not of the woman, but of his own employer, who he reckoned must not be happy about such a disturbance in the night. Willing strength to his legs, he shuffled out of bed and to the door. Hesitance licked him for only a moment before his hand twisted around the cool brass of the handle and cracked the door.

 

He peeked up at what appeared to be his very disheveled boss through clotted curls.

 

“Jon?”

 

“Martin.” Jon’s voice sounded low and sturdy, which came as a relief after the hoarse scratch of his own. “Were you attacked?”

 

“Just a nightmare,” the shorter man said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you at such an hour.”

 

Jon shifted his weight, and glanced behind him. “May I come in?”

 

“Of course - ah, I’m sorry, I should have invited you already.”

 

But Jon was waving his words aside already as he stepped into his guest quarters. Locking the door behind him with a click, Martin walked back over and sank on the mattress as Jon situated himself at the desk beside the bed. Neither spoke for a moment, before Jon broke the spell of silence.

 

“You were having a night terror,” he simply said. Martin gave a nervous laugh.

 

“I assumed so, if I woke you from all the way down here.”

 

“You were screaming.” Jon had turned to look at him now, grey eyes held raptly to the darkened figure of the other man’s face. “Genuinely screaming, Martin.”

 

Martin felt embarrassment prickle along the backs of his hands as he rubbed them together. “Right,” he mumbled. “And I’m sorry.”

 

There was another awkward pause, before Jon looked away. “Would you like some water?”

 

“Please.” The word fell traitorously fast from Martin’s lips, but he couldn’t help himself - the relief of cool, wet water sounded like a luxury just then. Jon stood, and within a few moments, returned with a tall glass. He settled once more as Martin drank eagerly.

 

More minutes of silence came as he finished the drink and set the still glass on the desk, and laid back. He couldn’t quite make Jon out through the dim lighting of his phone flashlight propped on the stand, but it looked as if Jon’s sight was set on the desk.

 

“Martin.” His voice was naturally quiet, but it seemed more than usual in the soft darkness. “May I ask you a personal question?”

 

“Alright.”

 

“Was your dream about something to do with this institution?”

 

Martin considered trying to lie, but he knew his skills in that were slightly underfed when it was with his colleagues. “Yes.”

 

“Ah.”

 

That was all he said before standing, and turning to the door. “Well, if you’re feeling better, then I should be getting back to bed.”

 

“Wait-”

 

Martin’s breath hitched as Jon looked back at him. “Would you stay with me?”

 

As soon as he spoke the words, he felt foolish. How incredibly stupid - Martin, a ditzy, scared boy, hardly scraping his thirties, asking someone to stay with him after a bad dream. He knew some quick, cold remark of reparandum was coming from him, and braced himself.

 

Instead, he was met with a short nod.

 

“Right,” Jon said. There was an emotion present that Martin’s sleep-ridden mind struggled to process. “Of course.”

 

The couch creaked as Jon climbed on, and settled on his own half, facing away from his colleague. Martin could only tense in disbelief for a moment before relaxing, feeling the comfort of another body with his in that cold room. His phone flashlight was turned off, and he rolled back on his side.

 

Minutes passed, perhaps bled into hours - Martin lost track of the tick of the clock. But eventually, the breath of his companion slipped into a soft snore, the silhouette of his shoulders slowly rising and falling in a rhythmic fashion. Martin wondered if he, too, might have bad dreams every now and again.

 

Then again, for everything Jon was, he was also a human being. One of the few in this damned profession.

 

Smiling at that thought, Martin let his eyes slip to a close. And within a few minutes, he was led into a deep, dreamless sleep.


End file.
